Whether listening to a portable media player while traveling, or to a stereo or theater system at home, consumers often choose headphones. Headphones typically include a pair of ear cups with associated earpads, and are held together by a headband. They can be classified into two general categories based on the size of the ear cups/earpads, namely circumaural (e.g., encompass the ear) or supra-aural (e.g., press against the ear). Both designs have their own acoustic advantages and disadvantages, but in most cases have some form of a passive noise control system or electronic active noise control system for reducing unwanted sounds from interfering with the desired sound output to the user. A passive noise control system may rely on the structure of the ear cup itself to passively or mechanically prevent unwanted noises from entering the ear cup (e.g., ear cup size, clamping force, vent, etc.). An active noise control (ANC) system is a noise (or unwanted sound) cancellation system which can electronically attenuate or cancel noise within the ear cup by, for example, emitting an “anti-noise” signal having the same amplitude and opposite phase to that of the noise such that they cancel each other out. For example, the ANC system may include a reference microphone, a cancelling speaker to output the anti-noise signal and an error microphone. The reference microphone may detect a reference input (e.g., unwanted ambient or environmental sounds), which is in turn used by the ANC system to generate the “anti-noise” signal, and the error microphone may be used to monitor a performance of the ANC system. In cases, however, where the reference input is coming from multiple directions, or a source that is otherwise not near the reference microphone, the reference microphone may not provide an accurate reference signal. To address this issue, multiple reference microphones are sometimes positioned at different spacial locations around the device housing. These discrete microphone signals are then summed electrically and used as a more spacially robust noise reference. Such systems, however, are electrically complex and may be rather costly.